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SkyGoblin开发者谈游戏从2D到3D的转变

发布时间:2012-02-13 18:04:24 Tags:,,,

作者:Cassandra Khaw

《The Journey Down》是款非凡的指向点击冒险小游戏,充斥着受非洲部落艺术作品启发的美学、幽默内容、爵士乐、瑞格舞和诸多令人惊叹的内容。Theodor Waern是《The Journey Down》创意内容制作人之一,近期接受了我们的采访,谈论《The Journey Down》中进行的改变。在这个简短的采访中,他提供了对从2D过渡到3D做法的个人见解。

the journey down(from indiegames)

the journey down(from indiegames)

目前行业内有大量的机遇,为何你会选择之前的那种做法?

刚开始,我别无选择,只能使用手绘2D元素。为什么呢?因为我比较擅长于绘画。我是个绘图师,这就是我的技能,这就是我能做的事情。而我对动画仍不熟悉。当我开始探索这片领域时,对我来说2D动画有着更为友好的学习曲线。我缺乏3D动画技术相关技能,而且也没有足够的时间来学习。

你是否认为人们对某些视觉风格带有先入为主的看法?比如,某些图像会让人想起轻松愉快的JRPG。这对此有何看法?

我承认,在保持游戏设计原创和有趣的前提下,利用实时3D比2D更为困难。但是,这与任何固有想法并无关联。这仅仅是技术问题而已。有趣的游戏玩法需要经过大量的测试和修改才能获得。3D提供的额外维度只是增添了技术难题而已。它成为了需要在所有情境下保持有效的额外条件。无论这种额外的障碍是大是小,它都有可能妨碍许多创意想法的执行。

当然,实时3D也同样可以实现某些在2D中无法执行的想法。这两种方法都有其各自的优点和瑕疵。

为何从2D转向3D?

在低分辨率游戏中,低帧率动画效果良好。事实上在这样的游戏中,如果动画播放过于流畅,反倒可能出现问题。但是,现在我们将分辨率提升到了1280 X 780,低帧率动画便成了个问题。它极大地降低了整体视觉效果的质量。预生成的3D角色显然成为了我们的较好选择,因为我们公司拥有全职3D动画美术师。也就是说,如果我们拥有的是职业2D动画美术师,我相信即将到来的HD版本在2D动画条件下同样会相当出色。

这种转变困难吗?两者最核心的不同之处是什么?是否需要改变代码?是否需要改变方法论?游戏的流畅性会有何改变?

从2D转化到3D是件很重大的事情。从技术的角度来说,需要改变大量的东西。幸运的是,对我们来说,从2D转化至预生成3D比从2D转化至即时3D要简单得多。所需要改变的只是资产开发层面的内容。游戏内容的执行部分无需改变。至少,在我们的作品中它们无需改变。但是,我想说的是,预渲染3D和实时3D的资产有很大的差异。

实时3D需要更多的有效模型和纹理。它还使角色动作以及动画的细节层次的局限性大幅增加。但是,它们能够支持更多的动态样式,整合进整体游戏体验中往往会让玩家获得更好的体验。预渲染3D只支持预先进行细节润色的动画,但模型没有技术界限。不幸的是,使用预渲染3D就意味着游戏环境灵活性降低。

这种新技术给你们的游戏带来哪些好处?

它有助于我们在游戏世界中添加新的角色。如果没有3D的话,这些角色会如同棍子般僵硬。现在,他们可以流畅地呈现出动画效果。我们的游戏主角现在可以朝16个方向移动,而且还带有面部表情,这些都是技术给游戏带来的好处。

游戏邦注:本文发稿于2012年1月3日,所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

SkyGoblin’s Theodor Waern Talks About Going From 2D To 3D

Cassandra Khaw

Like every other fan of the franchise, I’m still anxiously waiting for SkyGoblin to cough up Chapter Two of the Journey Down. Unfortunately, I doubt it’ll be coming out soon – the multi-platform HD version needs to be released first. Alas. Still, I’m not going to complain because the HD version looks sweet enough to kill a diabetic. For those in the dark about the game, The Journey Down is a phenomenal little point & click adventure filled with African tribal artwork-inspired aesthetics, silly humor, jazz, reggae and no small amount of awesome. Don’t believe me? You can download the original here.

Right. Now that I’m done with the routine evangelism, here’s something that may be of interest to those who have tracking the progress of the remake. Theodor Waern, one of the creative minds behind The Journey Down, recently sat down with us for an interview about the changes that The Journey Down have undergone. In this short interview, he provides some insight on the transition from 2D to 3D.

(Note: This was originally intended to be a two part interview. The second part would have discussed the transition from 3D to 2D. Unfortunately, due to real life circumstances, the second bit is on indefinite hold.)

What attracted you to your original medium? With the plethora of possibilities out there, what made you opt for what you did?

In the beginning, I quite simply had no choice but to go with hand-painted 2D elements. Why? Because I paint stuff. At heart, that’s what I am. That’s what I do. I’m a painter. Animation, on the other hand, is still quite new to me. When I first began exploring the field, it struck me that 2D animation had a friendlier learning curve. The nitty gritty technicalities of 3D animation were things I lacked the competence and the time for.

Do you think people have preconceptions about certain visual styles? For example, RPGMaker-esque graphics seem to make people think of light-hearted JRPGs. What is your stance on this?

I honestly do believe that it’s a notch more difficult to keep game design original and fun when working real-time 3D than it is when working with 2D. This has nothing to do with any preconceived ideas, though. It’s merely a technical issue. Fun gameplay is something that results from extensive testing and tweaking. The extra dimension that 3D provides also adds an extra headache. It becomes this one extra thing that always needs to work in all situations. Regardless of how small this extra hurdle might be, it’s still something that can halt many creative ideas from being implemented.

Of course, real-time 3D also allows for some amazing ‘out of the box’ ideas that would be impossible to implement in 2D. Both approaches have their individual strengths and flaws.

What precipitated the change from 2D to 3D?

Low frame-rate animations are fine and dandy when you’re working on a game that is supposed to have a low-res retro vibe. In fact, if it had been too smooth, things would have looked wrong. However, now that we’ve raised to resolution to 1280×780, choppy animation was a problem. It lowered the overall visual quality like crazy. Prerendered 3D characters became the obvious choice for us because we had the good fortune of having a full-time 3D animation artist on board. That said, I’m confident that the upcoming HD version would have been equally impressive in 2D if we had had a professional 2D animation artist instead.

Was the transition difficult? What were the most integral differences? Did it change coding? Did it change your methodology? The flow of your game?

Going from 2D to 3D is a big thing. From a technical standpoint, a lot will change. Fortunately for us, going from 2D to pre-rendered 3D is a lot easier than going from 2D to real-time 3D. Only the asset development side of things changed. The actual implementation of the game did not. At least, not in this context. What is worth mentioning here, though, is that assets for pre-rendered 3D and assets for real-time 3D are extremely different.

Real time 3D requires more efficient models and textures. It also sets steep limitations on the actual character rigs and the level of detail that they can be animated in. Conversely, however, they’re also capable of acting in a more dynamic fashion and often feel better integrated into the overall game experience. Prerendered 3D, on the other hand, allows for insanely well-detailed animation rigs. It also sets no technical boundaries on the models. Unfortunately, pre-rendered 3D also means less flexible game environments.

What did this new intepretation of space bring to your game?

It helped us add character to the residents of our game world. Without 3D, they would still all be as stiff as sticks. Now, their animation is capable of flowing beautifully. Our main character is now capable of walking around in all of his glorious sixteen walking directions (Can you imagine animating that by hand instead?). And the facial animations of his sidekick as he hands out clues? Priceless. (Source: Indie Games)


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